Yes it is . That’s why Their still sold out because Sony is purposely not making enough of them.
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M1 Max Chip May Have More Raw GPU Performance Than a PlayStation 5
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The specs are impressive, but without real world testing and benchmarking against an actual PS5 they're pretty meaningless.
Apple didn’t make the comparison to the PS5, NotebookCheck.com did. Regardless, we’ll have to wait and see if the claims bear out at the end of the day.
Apple has no desire to getting into gaming and they already own the digital camera market now with the iPhone.
Software and timing with CPU RAM and Cache has a huge impact on how successful you are at that TFlop calculation. Miss a cache or timing you might drop 2 TFlop
I’m curious how well Divinity original sin II did on the iPad Pro? That came out as a iPad Pro only game to try a be “premium” AAA, when it wouldn’t run on most peoples iPads. So blatantly a niche market, but since there’s not many high end games it’s also kinda “the game to have” if you have an iPad Pro. Seemed not to be doing too bad in the charts, especially since it’s an “expensive” one in a world of free in-app purchases and $0.99 ones.
It was already out on other platforms by a couple of years but if it was worth Larian doing that for iPad I wonder if other PC/PlayStation semi-recent AAA games could do a similar thing, where if you’re good and early in a niche market of capable hardware you can actually do quite well, and probably make others ponder following.
I don’t actually know how well that went for Larian though. Anyone know? But I’m pretty sure Apple gave them a couple of Metal engineers to support their endeavours and help “show what could be done”. 🤔
So the argument no one buys a Mac for proper gaming could be equivalent to no-one buys an iPad for proper gaming, but there’s still a good number of people out there who aren’t massive gamers but they own them and will pay decent money for a decent game (like me as an example). But they did have Apple’s help, and I don’t know how much money it actually made Larian as one of the few AAA games for that hardware. Anyone know?
It was already out on other platforms by a couple of years but if it was worth Larian doing that for iPad I wonder if other PC/PlayStation semi-recent AAA games could do a similar thing, where if you’re good and early in a niche market of capable hardware you can actually do quite well, and probably make others ponder following.
I don’t actually know how well that went for Larian though. Anyone know? But I’m pretty sure Apple gave them a couple of Metal engineers to support their endeavours and help “show what could be done”. 🤔
So the argument no one buys a Mac for proper gaming could be equivalent to no-one buys an iPad for proper gaming, but there’s still a good number of people out there who aren’t massive gamers but they own them and will pay decent money for a decent game (like me as an example). But they did have Apple’s help, and I don’t know how much money it actually made Larian as one of the few AAA games for that hardware. Anyone know?
Exciting to see the graphics power range, but does raise the issue:
Will Apple ever care about more than casual gaming? They obviously have the money to incentivize game developers to port games to macs.
The ecosystem for casual gaming makes big money for Apple in iOS and be great if the Apple silicon computers can get more full versions of games, or even ports from PS5/xbox
Will Apple ever care about more than casual gaming? They obviously have the money to incentivize game developers to port games to macs.
The ecosystem for casual gaming makes big money for Apple in iOS and be great if the Apple silicon computers can get more full versions of games, or even ports from PS5/xbox
Exactly, with the m1 the developers started to bring aaa titles because the hardware reached a certain level
It cannot sustain it! Apple doesn’t allow a stream of 40W to to the SOC. Except if your code can bypass that…
I game on my iMac 27”, Starcraft 2 is lots of fun, For a while Apple supported steam on Mac too, but that support faltered.
Wooing game developers to build games for the two high end MacBook Pros that Apple just released is a losing proposition for Apple. Microsoft poured countless ten (or is it hundreds) of millions of dollars into the Xbox and only now, 20 years later, is reaping any sort of reward for all the money they’ve spent. If I want to game, I’ll buy a console. For work, I’ll buy a MacBook Pro. I’m not mixing the two worlds. There are too many other choices for gaming to giving a flying fig whether AAA games ever appear on a macOS device.
Additionally, if your workflow doesn’t require any of those applications, why would you drop that sort of $$$$ for a new MacBook Pro when you could buy a console or even a decent gaming PC and a MacBook Air and have bit of change left over? Because you can? That’s the only reason I can see, and that’s your right, but I don’t see Apple catering to the tiny minority of users who want their Mac’s to be gaming rigs. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
What are you basing these claims on? Where does this 40W come from? As I told you before, I checked the powermetrics readings and the GPU was drawing 10W (which I suppose is the power it needs to reach it's nominal 1.266Ghz). I don't have an M1 machine right now so I cannot verify this again, or I would post a screenshot.
Once I get my M1 Max I'll run the benchmark again and I will try running the maximal throughput kernel for much longer time.
Apple would be foolish to pursue AAA games.
Even though they are huge, they still have limited resources. They are investing those resources to create low power/high performance chips for one reason: to power stereoscopic rendering of two 8k displays while processing sensor input. Where, you ask, is that? It's right here:
www.macrumors.com
This is the foundation for a much, much larger market that AAA games. It doesn't matter how it does it (maybe without raytracing or CUDA compatibility, who cares?), so long as it gets the job done. That is a good business decision, and Apple is right for pursuing it.
Even though they are huge, they still have limited resources. They are investing those resources to create low power/high performance chips for one reason: to power stereoscopic rendering of two 8k displays while processing sensor input. Where, you ask, is that? It's right here:
Kuo: Mass Production on Apple's AR/VR Headset May Be Delayed Until End of 2022
Apple may not begin production on its upcoming AR/VR headset until the end of the fourth quarter of 2022, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today in a...
www.macrumors.com
This is the foundation for a much, much larger market that AAA games. It doesn't matter how it does it (maybe without raytracing or CUDA compatibility, who cares?), so long as it gets the job done. That is a good business decision, and Apple is right for pursuing it.
A Mac mini with this chip could probably replace many of the Mac Pro in the wild. It may even beat the 2013 cans.
High end cards aside - A Linux/windows desktop/ ps5 are still better values for most people if you need memory and/or power but do not portability (and as such don’t want to spend $4000 usd)
The primary benefits of Apple silicon is desktop class performance in a portable and cool running long battery life portables.
I explained elsewhere why I want one of the new devices: mainly for the high refresh rate screen and keyboard (the former because I suffer from motion sickness and the latter because I write hundreds of thousands of words a year). Editing and scrolling through long documents when I can’t be docked at a high refresh rate / low response time monitor is unpleasant for me, as is typing on my 2018’s butterfly keyboard for extended periods.
At this point there is only one piece of my workflow that is Mac-only. If I could find a suitable replacement I’d ditch the entire platform.
In the meantime, Apple will only sell me that fancy new screen I want if it has a honking big GPU attached to it, which I otherwise do not need (I have a Windows gaming machine). So, if
f I could get some use out of it, that would be kinda nice. What would be nicer still is if Apple would sell the larger machines without the hefty GPU, the way they used to.
Plus, I dislike clutter and inefficiency. If I could have just one machine for work and for goofing off and gaming instead of two, that would simplify my life, save me money, and benefit the environment.
Maybe what I really need to do is bite the bullet and work out a Windows workflow and stop waiting for a device Apple is never going to make.
If recent history is any indication our prayers will not be answered. Business and lifestyle folks will pay whatever Apple asks of them at higher end.
There are different demographics. I like gaming, but I never had a console and unlikely to buy one — they just don't have any games that interest me. Luckily, macOS is supported by what I like to play (mainly RPGs and strategy games).
Macs will not become a great platform for AAA gaming. Not in the short term. Not because of the M1 Max. Forget about it. A MacBook Pro with an M1 Max is to be used by professionals, not gamers. Here is some data to back this:
Too much GPU power is not required for the creation of a great gaming platform. The Switch is an example, as it has sold over 90 million units so far, and it does not even reach 1 TF. However, Nintendo backs it and offers great games which cannot be found in other platforms. Apple will not do it.
Still, the Mac can benefit from Apple Arcade or other similar initiatives. But those will not be AAA games with huge budgets. They will be more casual games, which can be played on all Apple devices. When you add iPhones and iPads to the equation, there is a market for it, and it can be huge, nearing 2 billion devices overall.
- The PS 5 has 10.28 TF raw performance, while the M1 Max has 10.4 TF. These figures are too similar, and on paper only, they do not represent real world performance.
- The fastest M1 Pro model, which will probably outsell the M1 Max by a large margin, has 5.2 TF, which is nowhere near the PS 5. And the regular M1, which is set to become the best-selling of them all, has 2.8 TF.
- A PS 5 costs $499, while the cheapest 14-inch M1 Max MacBook Pro costs $3,099 (and may go well higher than that). The PS 5 Digital Edition costs $399, and, just like the Mac, comes with no disc drive.
- Any PS 5 comes with a 825 GB SSD. An M1 Max MacBook Pro with an 1 TB SSD (which would provide approximately the same free storage, as it has to accommodate macOS and other software) would cost a minimum of $3,299, even more expensive.
- The SSD in the MacBook Pro, at 7.4 GB/s, is faster as the one in the PS 5, at 5.5 GB/s. But these figures refer to the 8 TB model, and Apple has not revealed the speed of smaller ones, which may be significantly slower.
- The PS 5 had already sold 10 million units by July 2021, a little more than six months after its release. Apple shipped a total 11.8 million Macs during the two first quarters of 2021. The vast majority of these Mac models are probably the lower-end ones, which cannot touch the performance of the PS 5.
- Sony sold over 116 million PS 4 consoles, and the PS 5 is performing even better. So, the installed base is huge, which attracts developers. By 2018, there were more than 100 million Macs in use. I suppose those figures have not changed much, otherwise Apple would have announced them. And, while all PS consoles are used for gaming and have the same raw power, Macs have different GPU power and are used for different purposes.
- The XBOX Series X has 12 TF, which is higher than the PS 5 and the M1 Max, and it also sells for $499.
- PC video cards may be far faster. The Nvidia RTX 3090 has nearly 36 TF, more than 3x the fastest M1 Max. Too expensive? Maybe, but the RTX 3060, with 13 TF, has a $329 price tag, and the RTX 3070, with 20 TF, has a price tag of $499. They may be all sold out for now, but this is temporary: once the pandemic is over and mining cryptocurrencies is no longer a thing, then prices will go back to normal. In the long term, a PC has a better cost/benefit ratio for gamers.
- The RTX 3080 Mobile has some 19 TB, almost double the fastest M1 Max. Of course, the M1 Max provides less heat and much better battery life, but that is not what a gamer who focus on GPU performance alone is looking for.
- There are over a billion PC users worldwide. Should developers have to choose, they will make games for PCs instead of Macs. There are over 120 million active monthly users on Steam alone, which should equal the total number of active Macs.
Too much GPU power is not required for the creation of a great gaming platform. The Switch is an example, as it has sold over 90 million units so far, and it does not even reach 1 TF. However, Nintendo backs it and offers great games which cannot be found in other platforms. Apple will not do it.
Still, the Mac can benefit from Apple Arcade or other similar initiatives. But those will not be AAA games with huge budgets. They will be more casual games, which can be played on all Apple devices. When you add iPhones and iPads to the equation, there is a market for it, and it can be huge, nearing 2 billion devices overall.
Yeah, I’ve basically been waiting for years for Apple to build a device they clearly have no interest in making.
Neither a macOS nor Windows nor Linux device can be my “everything” machine, and that’s what I really want: one device to rule them all. Nice, neat, simple.
And a total pipe dream.